rebalancing between the public sector and the private sector, we need this entrepreneurship to continue. >> thank you, mr. speaker. in opposition the prime minister said that he wanted his government to be the most family friendly government the country never seen. can ask them why he is cutting conservative pay for working mothers? >> first of all, can a welcome the honorable lady to the house of commons and congressional her on her recent election success. we've had to take difficult decisions about welfare, both in work welfare and in work well for an out of work welfare, and so we put a cap on 1% of all the working benefits, including the work that she mentions. but above all on this issue, what i think is the right thing to do is cut the taxes of people in work rather than take more in taxes and then redistribute it through tax credits pixel and decide we want to cut taxes on those who work. that's what we're doing and there will be more of it to co

come. >> over the last five years benefits have risen twice as fast than sellers. as the prime minister agreed that once we have a duty, it cannot be fair that people are out of work enjoy bigger increases than those who -- [inaudible] [shouting] >> i think my honorable friend puts it extremely clearly, many people in our country have seen a pay freeze year after year after year. and yet, welfare benefits have gone up year after year after year. so in politics we face a choice. do it go on putting those welfare benefits up, which actually is not helping those people who are in work on the pay freeze, or do we take the top -- tough the necessary decisions. we've taken the tough the necessary decision. the only welfare minister labour, the honorable member, said that the approach simply as assistant once again he is right.

>> thank you very much, mr. speaker. may i congratulate the prime minister and the uk government on following the lead of the scottish government and scottish parliament in its using equal marriage minimum pricing for alcohol and previously on the smoking ban. given the fact that unemployment is now lower in scotland than the rest of the uk, will he follow the lead of the scottish government by introducing a more shovel-ready measures for economic growth? >> i think what the honorable gentleman will find is because of the measures taken in the autumn statement, there's an extra 300 million pounds for the scottish government to spend, so if they want to spend that on shovel-ready measures they can. but i certainly am happy to say that when good policies are introduced in any party, in the united kingdom to i think we all have the opportunity to follow them. >> order. statements, the prime minister. >> here on c-span2 we will leave the british house of commons now as they move onto other legislative business.

you've been watching prime minister's questions time era questions time error of life wednesdays at 7 a.m. eastern of parliament is in session. you can see this week's question time again monday night -- sunday night on c-span. for more information go to c-span.org. click on c-span series for prime minister's question. plus links to international news media and legislatures around the world. you can watch recent video including programs deal with other international issues. you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs, we casey jennings live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watched key public policy defense. every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past programs, get our schedules at our website, and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> twenty-five years ago the u.s. and the soviet union signed

a treaty which removed thousands of nuclear missiles from europe. former reagan administration officials talk about the negotiations that led to the intermediate nuclear forces treaty. at this event hosted by the american foreign service association, it's an hour 20 minutes. >> okay. i think we're ready to go. i would invite everyone to take their seats. i'd like to wish all a very good morning. i'm susan johnson, the president of afsa, and i'd like to extend a very warm afsa welcome to you all, and thank you for coming to this important and special panel discussion, and also celebration of the 25th anniversary of the signing the inf treaty. special thanks of course go to our panelists and our moderator,

and i should not talk, ridgway and burt, for sharing their experiences and reflections surrounding the conflict negotiations that led to this treaty which was a significant factor in reducing danger of the cold war. i'm sure you know all of these three eminent folks, but i would just like to say a quick word. ambassador rozanne ridgway was assistant secretary of state for europe and candidate from 1985-89. in her 32 year foreign service career she served as ambassador to finland, a bastard former democratic republic, ambassador for oceans and fisheries affairs, and as counsel of the department. we are delighted to have her back to talk to us, or with us today. ambassador burt is currently now the managing director, where he led the firm's work in europe and eurasia since 2007.

but prior to this, ambassador burt was the u.s. ambassador to the federal republic of germany from 85-89, and before that worked in the state department as assistant secretary of state for european and canadian affairs and 83-85. and before that was the direct of political military affairs in the department of state. so he, along with his colleagues, has a long and eminent involvement of these issues but and finally last but not least, ambassador matlock, known to many of us, career ambassador, he's been holding a series of academic posts. i'm not going to list them all, since 1981, 91, excuse me. but during his 35 years in the american foreign service, 1956-91, he served as ambassador to the soviet union from 1987-1991, a special assistant

to the president for national security affairs, and senior director for european and soviet affairs on the national security staff from 83-86. and as ambassador to czechoslovakia from 81-83. i will not go over the rest of his eminent and long career in the interest of time, but i just did want to give you a brief recap of all three of them. and, of course, marvin kalb, who is the edward r. murrow professor emeritus at the harvard school of government and to contribute news analyst for npr and fox news channel, and is frequently called upon to comment on major issues of the day by many other leading organizations, and also he is very dear to her heart here at afsa. history to serve as moderator and has done a superb job every time. very happy to have you back, marvin. thank you so much. let me just go back and say just a word about the in depth knowledge, the skill, the dedication and perseverance of

each of you present today, who worked on the negotiating team for the process that led up to it. really did not just bring this to tuition -- fruition. it required outstanding diplomacy and capacity to balance the risks and demand of piece and the sort of okay security environment of the cold war period, which perhaps most people to remember, but perhaps some do not. so before turning the program over to marvin though, i would just like to mention, we have a new book that is very pertinent to the subject in our book series, the reagan gorbachev arms control breakthrough, edited by david t. jones, and dedicated to ambassador, the late ambassador who was the principal inf treaty negotiator

and leader of our inf delegation. and copies of this book are available at the back of the room for those of you who would like to purchase one afterwards. so without further ado, it's my pleasure to wish all happy holidays and to turn the program over to marvin. marvin? >> thank you very much, susan. is always a pleasure to be asked to come here, moderate a panel. my life has been absorbed with the foreign service. though i only work in the foreign service for a year and a half. 1956-seven, in moscow. but since that time, albeit in different ways. as a look at how he now i see familiar faces, but i see a lot of gray hair, and that also suggests to me that most of the people in this room remember that there was a cold war, and that there was soviet union. and in 1997, the relatively new

leader of the soviet union, gorbachev, signed an agreement with president reagan, that we are in effect celebrating today. the 25th anniversary of the inf treaty. and i learned this morning that it has a much longer name, the treaty between the u.s.a. and the ussr on the elimination of their in a medium range and shorter range missiles, and that word elimination has an awful lot of clout. because up until that point we were talking about reducing or limiting the development of nuclear weapons. and it also strikes me that we were in another era. we were in the cold war, and that was obvious to us all. but at that time not quite so obvious we were beginning to see signs of the end of the cold war. we didn't quite recognize it at that time, but for me

personally, i remember clearly that in the early 1980s, there was a sudden eruption of antiwar and antinuclear demonstrations all over western europe. the russians had moved ss-20 medium-range missiles into eastern europe. they were regarded as a threat, and suddenly everybody was very concerned about the possibility of war. and i became aware of that in a dramatic way when my boss called me up to new york and said, hey, what the heck is going on? what's going on in europe? how serious is this? are we really at the beginning of what might become a war? i said i haven't a clue, but if you want to send me there i would be delighted to go. and so i went over there for the better part of a year, floating around in that part of the

world. i thought myself, quite extraordinary what was seen in germany especially. and i would like to ask, perhaps i could start with rick burt, and ask him to answer a simple question as you lay the groundwork year. were we really dealing with a serious strategic threat from the soviet union? >> well, that's a great, that's a great question. i think if you look at the deployments that you were just talking about of the ss-20, the western military district of the soviet union, in a broader context, a broad modernization and build up of the russian

nuclear forces, marvin, i think not only viewed as a threat militarily, but it was also viewed in a word we used to use at that time, also viewed as a threat, a political threat, decoupling. security in the united states of the european allies. this decoupling concept actually originated in europe in the 1970s. and it's interesting and important to go back and look at the origin of this whole issue act to relate the german government, chancellor helmut schmidt, who, in the late '70s, started pointing to russian deployment of the ss-20 as potentially threatening solidarity, and the concept that through every piece of real estate in nato europe as well as canada and the united states, was the same impact, and that we

need to protect anti-terror russian political pressure, military force. against any nato ally. and the carter administration, having reversed its decision on the famous neutron bomb, really rattled the europeans, but especially the schmidt government. and so you have to really view i think the early steps taken to what became the double track decision, deployment of cruise missiles and pershing two, and as a reaction to those uncertainties in that area. now, interesting, the reagan administration inherited the nato double track, and it wasn't prepared to kind of think through the consequences. one big issue immediately faced that marvin talked about this

unprecedented political protests going on in europe in the early '80s. it was really i think focused on a belief that the reagan administration wasn't really serious about negotiating a solution to it was only interested in rebuilding american military power. ..

to adopt the famous zero option, which all of us in the state department said was just not credible to our allies. why wasn't a credible? the russians had come and i can, but they have something like two

or 300 ss-20s, either deployed or under deployment to each of the ss-20s had three warheads, warheads directed at europe, and our systems were down the road. we were going to begin to point and to 83. we asked yourself how is it we can go to the russians, ask them to dismantle their system so we don't have to deploy. and sure enough, well, immediately we were proven wrong. the piece movement in europe we initially endorsed the idea of your options. thought it was a great idea. but in a kind of reality, that we didn't have a very strong negotiating position. and what our job was in the early '80s was convinced the europeans the only way we can get there was to go forward with the deployment plan.

and it was hard, and ross will talk i think in a few minutes about reagan's own attitude towards nuclear weapons. i honestly believe it was in a visit to bonn, germany, in 1983 reagan actually saw several hundred thousand germans vigorously fighting in oppositiooppositio n to the deployment of those missiles. that he really internalized defensive opposition, sense of concern about nuclear weapons. ..

we almost -- there are several points where we almost swerved off of the road. one of them, the famous walk in the woods by paul mitchell, and roswell will identify with this. george shultz and secretary of state for approximately a month came to the state department for somebody well versed in economics and business. he wasn't somebody who paid attention to the strategic nuclear balance at that time. i got a call and paul mitchell was coming in to have lunge from

the state department and went to the lunch and paul and secretary shultz, on his informal chats with the russian ambassador on their proposed arms control which would have led to lower levels, not the zero option, but would not converge to missile all narrowed out. the big problem, when i listen to this, the secret of our success, very close to the allies. the fact that our ambassador without telling anyone and giving them a sense of ownership

is very dangerous. the reason he didn't go off of the road was the russians turned down that deal. they could have stopped it in our tracks. one other quick anecdotes we deployed those missiles about a month after a crisis in which the soviets shot down of korean airline, strong calls from the white house for us to walk out of the negotiations. the -- to punish the russians. we would not have been able to preserve the alliance we needed to get deployment done and george shultz successfully fought off in an irony that when we did successfully put forward, the russians saw that and took

public relations and the last point i would make -- i am going to make one last point, one more. in 1985 after a year-and-a-half of no progress, free gorbachev, when you had a drop-off, basically brain-dead soviet leadership, george shultz set down with -- that was the breakthrough that launched the issue and nobody at that time force on the zero option, already moved off of this. it was schulz and the president who outlined a new approach to the russians which put arms

control to the broader context of human rights discussions, regional security and balance the agenda that paved the way for the progress. >> thank you very much. you mentioned the brain dead soviet leadership at that time. we want to remember in the 1980s, until finally in 1955 in the spring, it was gorbachev who came in and radically turned around a great example of the way in which individuals affect the flow of history. what do you think of that? >> spring of 1985, some many conflicting threads of thought and activity taking place it is easy to set them aside but you have to recall discussion in the

u.s. government to deal with the russians no matter who was in charge. there was difficulty in europe and peace demonstrations, and what they have successfully done for political price. in east germany at that time the picture was not the most favorable in the united states, a warlike posture than on the peaceful posture and a great deal had to be overcome and get to the conclusion and successfully overcome in large part, and president reagan. 1985, suggested an agreement to go to geneva, the question was how did you get there and negotiating in the summer of '85

through the tenth anniversary of the helsinki final act and the general assembly in new york, engaging in a relationship with foreign ministers, another new face for the united states. the march towards geneva included the discarding of the old notion of communication on issues on which we disagreed and patch over with language which was always misinterpreted and the reestablishment of the acceptability of arms control and human rights and already made a statement. arms control regional issues and bilateral issues. the essence of that, we did not trade one u.s. interest for another u.s. interest, interesting gupta that point. people say if the soviet union does something we don't like they will pay with u.s. interests instead of one of

their own interests so we got away with that with a new negotiating approach and gradually to geneva where we arrived with some sense of things being significant to the soviet union and one of the preparatory trips we met with a member of the triumvirate's who said you know as do the year we got to be in charge the coverage was there. i am not sure a lot of that registered in washington intelligence community where we had a different sense of the soviet leadership we were acquiring as we went through the dialogue it became difficult to look what we were getting from the intelligence side and what we received across the table but in geneva as president reagan met gorbachev the first time the two of them met in front of a fireplace conversation later walking along the lake and began to see the emergence where people accept and believe in president reagan's view of the

role of nuclear weapons, very real distasteful. the key documents that emerged from geneva besides agreements later, the key document, the joint statement at the beginning, two leaders agree nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought. there were negotiations going on at the time, negotiations going on in geneva but they began to take their lead from the summit discussions. we were not able easily to get to the washington summit. kept running into bilateral issues in which one of our correspondents was picked up in moscow, problems with so-called marine corps security breaches in moscow and problems with people concerned about the fact that the new u.s. embassy in moscow was attacked, a tuning

fork for intelligence listing and each became an obstacle to getting to this summit meeting they were supposed to have and getting on with the arms control in a way that the negotiators in geneva conduce something with. on the road to reykjavik there's a real interesting exchange in correspondence between gorbachev and reagan in which they trade ideas how they might proceed on the start side to reduce weapons and on the inf side but there is very real soviet hesitation, fear of strategic -- not enough importance can be given to the role of the sdi in fostering and enduring the dialogue and worrying the alliance members who were not sure whether this as with zero zero impact makes the negotiations the united states was not prepared to negotiate seriously.

at ridge defect -- reykjavik the united states team arrived with the largest volumes of possible positions and responses to soviet positions you could see. they were totally prepared, the difficulty was again fbi. one of the takers of the opening session, as the two men met again their relationship having been fostered through the exchange correspondence and george shultz's reports to the president about many meetings with gorbachev, it became clear that somehow or another the soviets had to be brought to understand this was not going to be negotiated away. at geneva, one of the side stories you may have heard about, the president had said to mr. gorbachev we were using simultaneous translation not done before, a wonderful to work. instead of sitting through the

session, people talk for 30 minutes and had to sit for 30 minutes of translation these men were engaged across the table and president reagan said i will share with you the technology of the strategic defense initiative. gorbachev said you won't even share with us milking machine technology. those of us who were no takers stopped taking notes. we had never seen an exchange like that. these two men arrived in minivan and reykjavik with the dialogue in place, a style with talking with each other, respect for each other which is palpable and a belief that each could probably deliver on what they were talking about. very important. everyone knows the talks broke down. what was there was the agreement

that there would be 100 long-range on each side, europe would be free of such missiles and 100 would be placed in soviet asia and for the united states, hundred missiles would be placed in alaska. hard to say. it will be 100, and gorbachev set off at that point on the circuit to try to use sdi as the obstacle to progress and somehow get us to except the difference. meanwhile at reykjavik on the telephone, get to basic countries before the press called each of the basic countries and their leadership or whoever was available on sunday night and europe to inform them of the outcome of the inf talks, the global and -- greeted with total shock. people who had fallen in love

with arms control finally discovered the missiles. decoupling began on the u.s. side and on the television and the united states, leader after leader after a leader, general after general, former secretary of state after former secretary of state went on television to talk about the dangers of decoupling the united states as a result of this perspective. it was clear the president had in mind what he was doing and knew what he was doing and george shultz and he worked closely on this. gorbachev failed in his efforts, sdi is the reason there was not more agreement, and approached the united states in spring of 1987 to say there had to be at zero, nothing else seems to work and with respect to short-range missiles which have not really been part of the discussion,

they would agree to know short-range missiles. the announcement from the soviet side carefully passed the law and reduce the prospects in spring of 1987. >> wonderful presentation. matlock, brio in moscow during this? >> which one? >> 57. >> i was in washington. and in reykjavik and geneva on the reagan staff. >> with the russians -- from your point of view as a russian expert, what was going on in the russian mind as all of this was taking place? what was the importance of the emergence of gorbachev as the leader of the soviet union? >> there are a number of very important questions out there.

i think we understand in retrospect, much better than we understood that the time. one of the misperceptions i believe we had was that the deployment of the ss-20s had been calculated in advance to be a threat to europe and to decouple the alliance. as we look back now, we can find they had not staffed whatsoever, it was largely about inertia of the military-industrial complex. they would build what they could end before ministry was not even consulted before their decision to deploy. we now know there was a minority of opinion in the foreign ministry after the deployment. because it would be seen as a threat to to western europe and

it would bring a reaction to the united states that would be threatened. as we look back, one could argue from the soviet point of view that if they had these inf missiles and we had no comfortable missiles stationed in europe this would be a military advantage. however, once the united states based inf missiles in europe, suddenly they are better off with zero than they are with american missiles in europe. why? because if we had used them in retaliation, we could hit the soviet union by missiles that did not originate on the american homeland. would they then risk virtual annihilation by attacking the u.s.? no. that was the reverse of what we

would have faced if they used the inf missiles to attack our allies in europe. we would be faced with out the inf in europe to using our intercontinental and committing suicide. everything was reversed by the deployment. what wreck has set about the deployment is right. we had to deploy in order to showed the soviets that the real interest is zero. of course, in reykjavik we were close to agreeing and would have agreed if gorbachev -- on 100 outside, whether we would really have deployed 100 in alaska i doubt we would have had the right to. but the problem from a russian point of view was gorbachev also wanted to improve relations with

china and japan. with 100 inf missiles directed at them how has he going to do that? it was not in their interests to have 100 missiles out of europe and it was really in their interests. we now have access and have for some years to records of politburo discussions and let me go back to a couple words about president reagan. before he first met gorbachev, he rode out on the yellow pad several pages without prompting from anybody what he wanted to achieve at geneva in his first meeting. mcfarland handed this to me as we regretting it off of the plane to go to geneva saying this is what the president had on his mind. if he is wrong we will straighten him out. it was a very perceptive paper and among other things he

pointed out that the biggest problems, one of these was lack of trust. that he had to find a way to begin to create trust. we are not going to solve anything else. he also added, if i don't achieve anything else, i must convince gorbachev that we don't want an arms race. if he wants one he is going to lose it. and number 3, whatever we achieve we must not call it a victory because that will simply make further improvement more difficult. now let's go past the reykjavik meeting. february of 1987, gorbachev is facing a the politburo and is telling them we have got to come

to terms because these missiles are pointed it right at our heads. let's go to zero. they want zero. the defense minister said how about the british and french missiles. they wanted compensation and gorbachev in effect says get real. we don't want a war with britain and france. what you talking about. we are scaring everybody else, that is giving them an excuse for an arms race. if we get by with forcing us into an arms race we're going to lose it. exactly what president reagan assigned to delay tactic. i would say people at the time,

reagan didn't pay that much attention to details. his eyes would glaze over, numbers of missiles and warheads and stuff and fruit, didn't look at those things. he concentrated on basically how do i understand a fellow? how do i convince him to do something that is in his own interests? his current policies are not. we spent much more time and i think effective time talking to reagan about where gorbachev was coming from. what his pressures were, and one of the things we needed to do was in this process to convince him we are not out to do them in. among other things, reagan said

in the same memo human-rights was too important to carry out entirely as a public policy. we are much too upfront. if we confront him publicly no politician can back down. we got to handle this more privately. he began to move off the shouting at each other, condemning each other. not that that stopped totally but more and more putting it into a dialogue and a reasonable dialogue that included such things as these very affective tutorials by secretary of state shultz. the inf treaty was a victory on both sides. look at these issues in the future. i must qualify that by saying

every issue, every country has unique aspects. you can say simply because something worked in one situation it is going to work in another. however, the idea that you have to get some understanding of a strategic relationship which is not threatening in order to solve these problems of arms reduction is very true. it was not a matter as many people seem to think of getting the right formula such as walk in the woods for what not. it was rather a matter of going back to basics, why are we doing this? wouldn't we both be better off if we could do something else? that is what we finally got across to inf and subsequently a lot of other things. >> thank you very much. a preview presented marvelous insights to what is going on at the time, building up to the inf

treaty and you have all three of you spend a good bit of time talking about two personalities. we were dealing with two systems where the analysis often was that the system is what governs the direction of policy. not the individual. and yet you have spent a great deal of time talking about reagan and gorbachev. could we have had inf treaty at the end of the day if there were no gorbachev and no reagan? >> i think not. >> no. i think there were actually going to go back and maybe it is my you are experience, three instances, reagan/gorbachev said, also the allies. that was a critical aspect. without -- without somebody who

was prepared to talk out the deployment peace, i agree with jack. without demonstrating the credibility in the u.s. administration and the alliance as a whole, you couldn't have gotten the treaty. and if i think we underestimate the political defeat the russians experienced with successful d. fleming. they saw this, they threatened in the early 80s and you will remember this, and ice age if nato went forward. so i think the fact that you had credibility of deployment and -- when you think about leadership before gorbachev but also after, if you look at today's

leadership, the direction vladimir putin is moving, certainly would have been -- wouldn't have been willing like gorbachev was to take the risk gorbachev took and finally, this is a critical point, you want to talk about iran and whether there is a case study here, are am not sure the u.s. system even with ronald reagan, would have been willing to engage in this kind of diplomacy without the impact of the allies because they had to take a missile, we had to be uniquely sensitive to their politics and their concerns in a way that we rarely are in national security. >> you immediately said no to my question. >> i think it took both of them.

wreck has mentioned the allies. that is important. i would also mentioned george shultz, the foreign ministers. neither of them could have done it without that sort of support but the fact is that the united states needed someone with the confidence of the right wing to make a deal with the soviet union if any was going to be made that was going to be politically defensible. not that there was no democrat. they couldn't have thought this was a dumb idea. most of them probably did and i will save for the democrats they supported us every way as we were going toward the soviet union. >> so much on deployment. remember the nuclear freeze moment? >> i am talking about when we got the treaty. and then i would also say in the case of the soviets none of

gorbachev's successes would have been capable of doing what he did to change policy to understand the degree to which predecessors' policies were not in the interests of the soviet union. that took gorbachev and it also took the very improbable soviet leader who would risk his own position in order to try to do what machiavelli said is impossible, to change the institution in your country. he ran great risks and ultimately he wasn't successful. but he was successful in most of the things that made a real difference to us. without the two of them i don't know how this was going to happen. >> do you share that view? >> i do share that view. i happen to believe those big chapters in history featured big men with the courage of an idea, the courage of facing their own political futures on airline.

i believe in that. let me end this chapter, this is an anniversary and we have not gotten to that yet in our discussion. it was one thing for the leaders to meet and come up with a broad outline but another for many of the people in this room today and across washington who are observing this anniversary. a lot of hard work him geneva to put an agreement together based on these broad fox coming out of the discussions with leaders. i have often thought that much of the progress was possible because of a decision made by the soviet union totally out of conflict with this discussion. in stockholm in '85-'86, they would agree to verifications to on-site inspection which had never before agreed to but did in this case in stockholm and the conference. >> what did it in this stuff? >> they again began to measure

-- >> gorbachev? >> could well have been. could have been the military began to wonder stand there was a reciprocal to on-site inspection. was not a 1-way thing, they would have the opportunity also to look at the western military and defense establishment but quickly to the end of all of this. we had an agreement, there are stories along the way that i think our colleagues today got together, they would talk about some of them but jack mentioned ss-20 because it was the thing to do so they made it, there was a point when we sat with -- how many of these things do you have? he said i don't know. i am not in charge of making them work ordering them. they produced them, give me the ones i want. i don't know how many they make so i can't give you that number. i have to go back and tell. when we came to the end, the first part of december, teams are coming in here and getting

ready and even mr. khrushchev, head of the kgb was in town and i entertained him at my home one evening with the delegation that human rights could not be forgotten as all the headlines turned to arms control, everybody was gathering. we learned they did not have a picture. so finally they gave us a picture and it was of a canister. what can we do with a picture of a canister? the missiles inside have to guess, that won't do. we need a picture of the ss-20 so the next morning this time looking at the fifth of december or the sixth of december and we got a picture of the ss-20. finally an old soviet game that i was sure we left behind in geneva, 1985, when they said we cannot proceed with a joint

statement because your negotiators in moscow and aviation agreement are giving us on hard times until you agree on a new civil aviation agreement in moscow we will proceed in geneva and we don't play that game anymore. we will not negotiate on that basis. we are leaving, moving back when you decide to negotiate seriously on the task in front of us and the famous exchange between shultz, gorbachev, this is my way of saying the last item the march with was the u.s. inspectors could only enter the german democratic republic of berlin, capital of the german democratic republic and we spent 40 years saying berlin was not the capital of the german democratic republic and we read about the yield on that in the last minute. one of the major events and some other side stories that don't need repeating, the point of all

this was the united states in this negotiation, reagan, shultz, the whole team agreed this was a good thing to do and there is no population that thought this was a good thing, knew what they wanted and they were prepared to walk away unless they got it and the firmness of their resolve and determination to see it through and take the risk of saying no, we will not proceed on that basis, yes we will proceed on another basis were as important as the very real personalities involved. >> questions for jack. in your study of the end of the soviet period, what role did the inf negotiations -- the soviet union teetered toward an event? >> i am not sure if there was a

direct effect. i would say ending the arms race because this was the beginning of ending the arms race. it really took the start treaty and a series of others to do so and it took the liberation of eastern europe, which went as a separate process. but i would say that these things actually freed up gorbachev to try to reform the system. it took the pressure off of him. as long as we had the arms race they had an excuse to not change the system. but once you end the cold war, not just the arms race, and goerge of ended ideologically december 7th, 1988, also anniversary of that, exactly a year after he signed the inf treaty, what the ended in that

speech aside from announcing unilateral reductions in the military, was discarded the class struggle as the rationale for soviet foreign policy. that was rationale that also -- the communist party as the dictatorship in the country. at the end of the cold war, there were reforms that gorbachev started and these reforms when they got out of hand brought the end of the soviet union, got out of control and the end of the soviet union was caused almost entirely by internal forces and these were unleashed by the end of the cold war beginning with the inf treaty. >> the share that view? >> i do and we have two word we have not used throughout this there were so popular at the time with respect to understanding what gorbachev was trying to do, perestroika and

glass nose. he was attempting to change the soviet union internally even if he was engaged with us and talking about forces out of control that is a lot going on at the same time, many respects a wonder he held on as long as he did. >> you mentioned earlier on the russians made a fundamental mistake when they moved the ss-20s in. was there any fundamental mistakes the u.s. might have been? >> on the management of this issue, we almost ran into a couple ditch's but we kept it on the road. i have to say, i think about the last 20 years, 30 years of u.s. foreign policy, particularly the last ten years. i do call it the discipline, the

impact of working -- we were genuinely because this was an alliance why it effort, both of the negotiating side because in order to deploy the governments in question had to take ownership of the negotiations. they were not going to be sitting at the negotiating table but there is a consulting group made of special consulting groups that enable these people -- to say we are part of this process. we are not going to make those americans do some basic things, there were so many people in the reagan administration who were unhappy hearing the state department's argument over and over again. we cannot do that because it will disrupt our employment efforts. somebody had some new neutron bomb they wanted to deploy or something like this. we could go to the president and

tell him this would make deployment and arms control efforts that much more difficult. in most foreign policy issues washington has to address and any administration has to address the allies are taken into account but not in the same way as they were in the whole inf process. >> if you all have some questions this is your moment in the sun, just raise your hand and i will try to recognize you. >> to take into account for many people who have dealt with the united states, understand in the case of the allies these were very strong leaders, and they insisted on their views anomaly being taken into account the being made part of what we are doing. >> raise your hand if you have a

question. [talking over each other] >> no shortage of microphones. >> please raise your hand. >> give your name a few would. [inaudible] >> my mentor all those years ago, and big men. is there any hope today we still have big people on the scene who can write for history, someone mentioned iran, iraq and afghanistan, these things out there with no exit. do we have big people? >> i think we will. i think we will and we need them but we have not.

history bringing an issue to the point where it is ready to be resolved. you cannot march in and bring this together. a ripening of an issue and a readiness of people to talk, more than one person to talk about it. >> there is a ripening of the issue of iran which has been ripening for years now and many presidential statements have been made about the termination on the part of the u.s. not to allow iran to develop nuclear weapons during the presidential campaign. we heard from both candidates. is there a lesson we have picked up from the inf negotiations that could apply today as we look at the iran negotiations?

>> from one perspective you could say yes. there's a kind of dual track more than two tracks. the situation at play, every pressure on the iranian regime in the same way that the threat of the u.s. deployment of cruise missiles, an incentive that the iranians have to see if a solution in the absence of sanctions would not exist. and the diplomatic track. it is arguable how active the diplomatic track has been. i am struck by the fact that the europeans involved in this

process all along, and the timing, the obama administration's call with the external pressure, constantly hovering out there, the talk about a red line. when is the united states going to get serious about the second track? i am one of these people who believe there is an agreement out there that can be reached, and that would lead delay on nuclear-weapons iran. but i think the diplomacy has to be stepped up. jack's point about a republican conservative able to achieve agreement of this sort that are more difficult for a democrat is

a very important one. no matter what kind of agreement if there is an agreement reached with iran, it is going to be attacked by a lot of constituents but many of them are republicans. >> i could give examples when a democratic president reach major agreements. >> regarding iran, in any situation, you have windows of opportunity. there are other times when the personalities make it simply impossible. we should not have negotiated with hitler. it would not have helped in the 1930s. the thing is as far as iran is concerned, there are lessons, and one is the time to negotiate with iran was when they had a

relatively moderate government in 2003 before we attacked iraq. do them agree favor of taking out their main enemy, without apparently any negotiation whatsoever. i think we could have made a very useful deal with iran after 9/11. after all, al qaeda is their enemy. iraq was their enemy. we have a lot of things in common than. the time was 2003. now with mahmoud ahmadinejad there and all the things in history, i don't think that it is going to be that easy particularly to do public negotiations given the political stance that both have made.

the basic principle is we should have been looking for a strategic dialogue with iran and i would even go back to the 90s and i think that was also a mistake of the clinton administration when they had the double containment which i never thought made much sense. the fact is both parties have taken positions that have made it extremely difficult to achieve my negotiation but rick is right. in my opinion there is a solution out there, we have in effect when locked ourselves in and they have locked themselves in politically in a way that is going to make it very difficult. >> let's hope you are both right. the solution that is out there -- >> my name is james wilson and i

work in the historian's office in the united nations with my colleague elizabeth charles. we are putting together volumes of documents on the soviet union and arms control and we look through a number of old office files. it is of great historical interest to us. my quick question is in january of 1989 in new lead ministration comes in and there are a number of people who played a role and yet there seems to be real change in attitudes toward this sort of union and always a lingering mystery. >> i was there. >> you want to answer that? >> you are right. because in the bush administration line negotiated the stock 1 treaty and there were a lot of people, a lot of

people to startled by the fact that the new group in the white house, very good people like brad scopa, taking a very skeptical approach to the russians, there was a view and god bless him, brent scowcroft believed ronald reagan kind of fell in love with this process with gorbachev and they weren't clear minded enough or clear eyed enough about the russians. bob gates also, who had moved over to deputy national security advisers. that little group kind of delayed the process for six months because the people in

state were ready to progress with what had been achieved at the end of the second reagan administration. but it really delayed things. the person who turned that around who also deserves a great deal of credit was jim baker. jim baker did a great job putting together kind of an interagency management, and different players, and spent a good deal of time, would arrive in moscow with an entourage, with the negotiators, jim woolsey from csc, the relative assistant secretary, broke them into working groups and continue the process raws participated in, there was a delay.

i don't think there were any problems as a result. >> just wanted to say james baker was named secretary of state the day after george bush was selected. within a week he met with regional assistant secretaries to understand their priorities. my priorities were opportunities and challenges to include eastern europe and the soviet union, and i will say again, he said to me don't you really believe you pushed the president too fast? don't you believe you have gone too far? he said i do not believe that. the administration changed. we were asked to do interagency studies. we turned in one that showed continuing the same path and we were left out of town and wreck set with last six months. i think we lost two years. >> on this point let me say i

think wheat lost momentum with iran contra during the reagan administration. >> you have a microphone up front? okay. right here please. thank you. >> involved in inf in various capacities. this would repeat. one of the lessons related to iran, don't be afraid to negotiate. without an arms control track, the soviets know that lessons so they -- and i think all of you

mentioned there might have been windows of opportunity because we handle constant conditions before negotiating with the iranians had to do. the question is for weather left to ourselves we would not have engaged in games as we mentioned at the beginning of the reagan administration there was a desire on the part of the administration, the arms control person and the uproar from the allies and in the opposite direction but i don't think there was a network. >> thank you very much. question in the back, thank you

very much. >> i am dan whitman. >> stand-up please. >> let me know if this is off topic but since we have been talking i believe there was a meeting in the last couple days in dublin but russians and americans, it was somebody, is it possible something may be happening in terms of russian policy toward syria. since we mentioned iran can we get as far away as syria? >> you can get as far away as syria with some connections. >> if not -- [talking over each other] >> the question of syriac is totally sufficient importance that we could address that. my own gut feeling, i don't know what you feel, the russians have been for the last several weeks

there have been indications of unhappiness with what is going on in syria without a clear sense of what it is they can contribute and whether they could do it on their own or with the u.s. the u.s. has always wanted the russians to be part of that kind of solution. if there's one at all. if the russians in any way are moving toward the american position with respect to syria that are all afforded. another question. >> there's one right here. and we will assume that is the last question. >> you all hinted and alluded, i wonder about the dimension towards inf negotiations.

>> public diplomacy. >> the diplomacy, not with respect to the allies, very carefully stated different allies, practice meeting by meeting with soviet leadership was a complete shutdown on comments until the meeting was over. >> amen. >> that was one of the great boubous that you all did at that time because you may have had great relations bet you didn't with the american public. >> i don't know about the american public. >> the american public was ill informed what the u.s. government was trying to do. there was a huge uproar and if you listen carefully there was a sense the government did not know exactly -- was confused but

maybe you all had a clear sense of direction. >> we told you, you just didn't believe us. a group of bankers, you were not one of them, one of them asked, we didn't know this was coming, and the president made a speech january 16, 1984. more than a year-and-a-half before, most of your people said it was playing politics. he said forth in that speech which he wanted to do and we were very open. the press was extraordinary skeptical that the president knew what he was doing. there is another side to public diplomacy. how about the soviet union? ross has mentioned an important agreement at geneva that a

nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought. there was also an extremely important agreement to expand exchanges, we had an exchange agreement from the nixon administration which had lapsed during the carter administration because of the invasion of afghanistan, why we should cut off our exchanges over that i never understood. we got it restored, much expanded and the question was will gorbachev allowed this to happen? he did. gradually with the policy of glasnost he opened up the press, brought in new editors to most publications, started having westerners including by 1987 the american ambassador, frequently on national television so we began to communicate directly

with the soviet people in media, private media but also official, much more so, very important role and easing the tensions. when you have westerners discussing their problems sympathetically, often in their own language this was conveying had the opposite image, one of the hostilities and this played an important role in the american public and the soviet public in supporting what gorbachev was trying to do. >> was i would like to ask our panel is simply to take a minute each end give me your sense of the lessons learned from the entire inf experience and how they might apply today to some lessons learned, professionally and i am going to start asking

myself this question, how could be acres in 1985 have been so foolish as to believe that a president at the beginning of a presidential campaign making a foreign policy speech that was almost totally different in tone for the soviet union than the tone he took in the first three years not to have in mind that politics might have something to do, but skeptically -- >> a meeting of the impact of inf. the principal lesson learned in looking at some of the things we talked about today is you must know total range of your interests and must be prepared to serve all of them equally well and not allow yourself to table them in setting conditions

that no one can meet unless it is your objective -- if you want negotiations you must make it possible for your negotiating partner to get to the table. >> thank you very much. >> the one that i would take away is the importance, number one, eliminating what you won't do rather than put a limit on the man second-verifying that. is much easier to verify zero than any concrete number. therefore, we have to get our minds off of simply letting limits on types of arms the trying to get rid of those we don't want. we are facing the view of styria using chemical weapons. they should have been abolished five or ten years ago if the

treaty had been in force. it seems to me go for abolition of these weapons with good, thorough verification. it worked with inf despite the fact that years before we got it there is no one who thought it would be acceptable. >> as the chairman of global zero usa, what would have to agree with jack. i want to expand on that. there was no way when i was deeply involved in the issue that i could have foreseen gorbachev or could have foreseen the treaty. i thought the zero option was preposterous and i opposed it. so did the secretary of state.

we reviewed this, this is the lesson, we viewed this as largely a challenge and an opportunity to strengthen the alliance has. we saw ourselves under french. the double track decision and deployment of the missiles was part of a broader political, military exercises to strengthen the alliance so we could deal with whatever the next challenge we would face from the soviet union. what i have to say is you have to learn to have it and that is exactly what the reagan administration did when they found themselves somebody they could do business with it pivoted and ronald reagan, only believe in the zero option but

he went after it. somebody, a big man with a big fight, if you are president of the united states you achieve a great deal. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much for coming. >> c-span2 has live coverage of a hearing on the use of the human growth hormone in the nfl. coverage begins at 10:00 eastern. and later federal reserve chairman ben bernanke holds a news conference following a meeting of the federal open market committee. you can watch that live beginning at 2:00 p.m. eastern. >> the white house national economic council director discusses the fiscal cliff on monday and emphasizes the administration's position on higher taxes for the wealthy. he spoke at a center for american progress forum titled

investing in the future, higher education, innovation and american competitiveness. this is 40 minutes. >> it is my great privilege to introduce gene sperling, director of the white house national economic council and assistant the president for economic policy. gene sperling also is a former senior fellow at the center for american progress, pro-growth progressive. and the connection between innovation, education, ensuring we have an economy that works for everyone. i want to say having served in the administration, there is no one in the administration who is more focused on america's

long-term competitiveness, short term competitiveness, midterm competitiveness, when the president is talking about issues which are critical to him, america maintains its edges in the global economy, and all of its citizens to students to people dreaming about being the next generation of innovators, policies that helped achieve that. higher education k-12, insuring universities are still leading and citizenry is well s was sub human capital, not the best term. and achieving their dream, gene has been focused on those issues like no other. at brookings, education around

the world and has written extensively about education in the united states. he is obviously enmeshed in debates on the fiscal cliff but we brought him here today to talk about long-term challenges and how we connect the dots. with that, gene sperling. [applause] >> thank you very much. it is intimidating to have already followed your panel. i like much more when you get to be the first person to mention every idea and the panel's save as gene sperling said, now you go after the president's of harvard, glenn hutchins, susan

mollen ari, and parter with my wife on issues of child trafficking, a special place in our home. a lot has already been said and since i didn't get to hear all i don't know whether i will be repeating again. let me start by doing economic policy, particularly in this area reminding ourselves what is the end goal of economic policy? you hear a lot of metrics on gdp, growth, productivity as if those were the ends in themselves. they are all means to an end, ultimate goals of economic policy which to me, are we a nation in which the accident of your birth is not determined by the outcome of your life, there's a real chance for everyone to rise?

are we an economy where growth strengthens and broadens the middle-class so there's not security for the lower class but ability for those from other countries and those who are for can move up without pushing anyone out and are we an economy and country where people who work hard take responsibility for their lives can work with dignity, raise their children with dignity and retire with dignity? those are our ultimate goals and that is with everything we do is measured against. innovation you cannot define many ways. you can define as commitments to combine technology and skills and other inputs to have better methods and processes for higher productivity. you can define it as commitments to bold and persistent experimentation and also define

it as a commitment and building blocks that way the foundation for innovation economy research education, modern infrastructure. in the end i believe if you are progressive, the way i believe we have to look at it, it is fundamentally a commitment that we want to embrace change and make sure it works in a way that furthers, now works against those basic values. innovation, change, productivity that leads to hollowing out the middle class can you give you the same productivity growth but it does not meet our goals as a country which is to be a country of shared prosperity and broad middle class. my view, and the book i wrote back then and more importantly president obama's view that you are progressive, you need to be

at the forefront, embracing change, shaping change so it is meeting those basic progressive values we talked about, the president well knows that we cannot assume that type of pushed for its technology, globalization, innovation however inevitable will automatically lead to the type of shared growth we want, that there is potential to have those types of changes lead to winner-take-all outcomes that are not consistent with shared prosperity and an economy and growth built to last. so our question i believe is not how we put the brakes on but how we put the engine on innovation and change but we do so with the ultimate issue of whether it is

promoting fundamental ends of shared prosperity and stronger and more inclusive middle-class. and i think the issue of progressive taxation is not at all irrelevant to this. when you think again that we do have an economy that is capable of having more winner-take-all outcomes. that context, progressive taxation is not about redistribution, it is not about populism, it is not about punishing success in any way. what it really is is about a national commitment to essentially pay it forward, to recognize that those of us who have benefited most from the innovation of the past, who have benefited most from the investment of the past have an obligation if we are doing well to pay it forward, to make sure that we are giving this generation and the next generation the same building blocks in terms of education, research, mode